John Joe Barry

Museum of Transport

Barry was one of the fastest men in the world in the late 1940s and many people expected him to be the first to run a mile in less than four minutes. On 28 June 1949, he attempted to break the mile record at Glasgow Corporation Transport's Helenvale Recreation Ground in Parkhead. Also in the photograph are Mr Evans, the GCT starter, and O Jonsson from Reykjavik.

Sadly for Barry it was Roger Bannister who won the race to run the first sub-four minute mile, in 1954.

Reproduced with the permission of Glasgow City Council, Glasgow Museums